


Sew Wings to Your Pigeon Toes

by sophiahelix



Category: Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Genre: Double Drabble, F/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-10-01
Updated: 2004-10-01
Packaged: 2017-10-19 12:57:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/201094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiahelix/pseuds/sophiahelix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing she writes is genius until she's at least seven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sew Wings to Your Pigeon Toes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pearl_o](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearl_o/gifts).



> A double drabble for Pearl_O, in response to the following Decembrists lyrics:
> 
> _Still now you're waiting to grow  
>  Inside you're old  
> Sew wings to your pigeon toes  
> Put paper to pen_

When she is five she sucks and chews the ends of blue Bic ballpoint pens until the ink spills onto her pale pink lips. Chas is disgusted, complains to his mother; Richie's eyes tear up, and he hides beneath the couch at the sight of her mottled mouth. Her small hands cramp as she fills lined legal pads, five good fingers gripping the pen, five good fingers splayed out on the paper. Poetry comes first, mostly sonnets, then two short novels, and finally three one-act plays heavily influenced by Chekhov. Nothing she writes is genius until she's at least seven.

Richie watches her write, nude, on her stomach on the bed in their apartment. Her words are a secret, she says, until they're ready. She has perfect turnout, her feet at right angles to her body, and he remembers that she took ballet lessons when they were small. He doesn't remember why she stopped. He runs his fingers up under the arches of her feet, over the thin, strong calves, and then higher, where it's warm and wet. It's a mystery there; her head is a mystery; and as he kneels behind her the words come and come and come.


End file.
